


Fallen Leaves

by Silvermoonphantom (Daitoshi)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Blood Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daitoshi/pseuds/Silvermoonphantom
Summary: Merrill was a curious child, devouring any story she could get her hands on - always asking for more.





	Fallen Leaves

Paivel had always held a certain fondness for their young foster First.  
Merrill was quick to listen to a new tale, eager and attentive to learn the histories of the People. He watched her grow quickly from child to teen, never losing her wide-eyed wonder at the world.

As seasons passed and their clan ventured across Ferelden, her insatiable hunger for novelty only grew, devouring every story and poem he could remember and always asking questions. Asking for clarification, expansion, meaning behind the tales he recounted. Paivel obliged, of course, delighted to have such an eager student of lore. The more she knew, the more she wanted to know, and even when he tested her for details, her capacity for remembering and reciting was fascinating to watch.  
It was almost a shame that she was born with such a strong gift of magic. She easily could have been his own apprentice.

But, as her appetite for knowledge grew, so too did the available novelty shrink. She had heard hundreds of stories during the meeting of the clans. She had politely interrogated nearly everyone in their clan for information on what they did, insisting when asked, that she had to know everything she could about a clan, so she could learn how to lead wisely. This did result in many tedious chores passed onto the girl’s shoulders, some of their members laughing at how eagerly she would do any task, so long as it was among the first few times she’d tried it.

He already knew without the inevitable evesdropping on gossip, that her patience for boredom was practically nonexistant. Watching her listen to a story she already knew was the same as watching the last stump of a candle wick sputter and die, smothered by wax. The light just fled from her eyes, quick fingers picking at grass or rolling loose threads, or absently twisting a stick between her fingers. When told to sit still and stop fidgeting, he could practically see her brain writhing around itself, a snake pinned by a rock and desperately trying to wiggle free.

“The world is amazing!” she had told him, several times. “It’s so complex, I can’t stop for breath without seeing something new. Did you know songbirds become predatory in the winter? I watched one tear a bat right out of its hidey hole, and bludgeon it to eat!” He nodded, knowing the birds that followed their aravels would broaden their diet significantly when pressured by winter shortages. Merrill’s smile was positively gleeful, feet quick to dart her between people to lend herself to someone’s tasks with the hope they’d present her with something interesting to do.

He could always tell when someone had given her a new task, since she’d vanish for most of a day, completely absorbed in whatever she was doing. He’d find her up a tree, or stuffed in the crevice between two rocks as she sought out “Just for somewhere quiet, you know? Somewhere that I can’t hear everyone shifting about and talking all the time.”

On the same token, Paviel could also tell when she’d been scolded by one of her elders, or worse, by Marethari. The girl would become despondent, dragging her feet and clearly resisting the urge to curl up in an Aravel and sleep the grey day away.

But, there was no time for that.

The Kocari Wilds were not gentle to travelers, and Ferelden’s winters could be harsh. There was always something new to do, and on days when the girl’s mood had plummeted, and he couldn’t think of any new tales, there was always the Halla to cheer her up. There was always something to do to tend the deer - from pulling burrs from their white coats, to checking their elaborate horns for damage, or brushing free any dried mud that might have splashed up while they traveled. Maren, the keeper of the Halla, tolerated her well enough, but Paviel noted the girl seemed drawn not just to the Halla, but to the young hunter always lingering about.

He was a bit older, but liked to put on mysterious airs. The type who would say something interesting, and then refused to elaborate. It drove Merrill up a tree, following him around to pester for more details, or an explaination. He'd show her traps, or how to track a rabbit through the brush, dropping hints to keep her strung along all afternoon. The girl seemed to think he was some hidden fount of secret knowledge at first. As they grew older, Merrill grew more isolated from the clan as she delved deeper into the studies of Magic their Keeper tasked her with. Hanhari went on longer hunts, and started a friendship with a fellow hunter that would pull the two away from camp for long periods of time. Tracking or something else, Paivel didn't want to know. Though, the absences didn't stop Merrill from scouring the ranks whenever hunters returned. She seemed to pick up on the lack of interest, and quietly faded back into the background - hidden behind books and old rites.

Paivel was woken one morning by a scream. Not a child’s scream, but a woman’s. He had sprinted toward the sound, only to find himself outside the healer’s tent, watching a huntress - Serelen - sob brokenly as she held her arm out. The swiftly-rising clan gathered to watch, their Healer already at her side.

Her hand writhed from within, terrible cracks breaking the air held still by frozen breaths and horrified eyes. Like a stew bubbling up, shapes rose from under her skin. Dark skin split as white shot forward like glistening claws. Burrs started growing from the blood-slicked bone, muscle boiling over to hang in wet ribbons looping up around the mutating limb. The frantic movement started creeping from her knuckles toward her wrist, before a glint of silver slashed down, and Keeper Marethari was pulling the ashen-faced huntress into the Healer’s tent, glowing fingers sending sparks across the fresh stump.

He didn’t miss Merrill’s fascinated gaze at the hand, or how she crouched down to watch the growth gradually slow and stop. He stepped forward to usher the teen away before she could touch it, trying to urge her to keep her voice down without actually scolding her for the curiosity. The girl had such a hard time knowing what was appropriate to say aloud.

They found out the details in the coming hours- About an elfroot extract Serelen had been trying to concentrate, wanting to heal the pain in her tendons without the therapeutic exercises meant to speed healing. It had gone too far and, once applied, cause growth to expand out of control. Keeper Marethari had managed to heal closed the stump, and warned Serelen’s family that she’d need help adjusting to one-armed hunting. A frustrating challenge, but the woman’s heart was strong.

Paivel was glad she hadn’t applied it anywhere closer to her torso.

Merrill wanted to know how it was done.

He sighed, asking her instead to recite old poems and read new ones from the scrolls he’d gathered from human settlements they passed - glad to have any resource to ease the endless gnawing of her brain when winter came and snows hushed the land. Likewise glad to have a distraction to get her mind off the subject that would inevitably lead to some very poor word choices around elvhen who had just suffered a loss.

It wasn’t even a surprise to find Merrill perched in the corner of the Healer’s area the next day, hands tucked under her legs to stop the fidgeting, eyes keenly pinned to deft movements as the older elf sorted through gathered herbs brought in by their scouts and willfully ignored the First peering over her shoulder.

He wished their peaceful existence could continue indefinitely, but…. Things always seemed to change.

He wasn’t sure exactly when it had started - couldn’t pinpoint the precise day - but he did notice when her questions started to have a… particular tilt to them. It was the healer, he knew who started them - questions he’d rather not answer, and directed to Marethari.

He knew very little of Magic, after all, and it wasn’t his place to tell her about it anyway.

That moment seeing the gruesome power of healing magic, and the paths she chose to pursue afterward were… no one’s fault, really. Even she couldn’t be blamed for the curiosity that seemed to consume her, memories and tasks forgotten in the moment of discovering. And once this new door opened up, it was impossible to shut again.

She asked about the Sylvan, and about the spirits who possessed the trees. She asked about old wars, and older treaties, and still older betrayals. He knew she was asking Marethari much the same questions, and the bright gleam in her eye when he mentioned spirits started to worry him.

When Mahariel came back to camp shouting about an ancient mirror they found - an artefact with elvhen statues nearby. It had shown strange visions, and Tamlen had gone missing. Merrill was the first to join the party to search for the missing Tamlen. Paivel chose to hang back, young ones already enamored with the tales he’d been spinning. Their clanmate couldn’t have gone far.

They never were able to recover Tamlen. The Grey Wardens interfered, and shattered the mirror. Keeper Marethari returned saying it had been corrupted, isolating Mahariel from the rest of the clan, trying to cure the dark veins crawling up his cheeks, and the ashen, dead look in his eyes. Eventually, the Grey Wardens took him away.

But as the elf was swept off to face the Blight, allegedly cured by Grey Warden methods, the unsettling feeling of wrong never left the camp. It still oozed out between their aravels at night, still clung in greasy smoke-shadows behind Merrill wherever she walked.

She started requesting topics for books he look for while in town, and though she still seemed to adore any new story he could find about the People… he grew concerned with her fascination with the magic of blood sacrifice. Her eyes were still bright when she told him what she’d learned - hands flailing with excitement as she tried to shape her thoughts into the very air between them. Shapes of rituals and special daggers. The precise words and emotions needed to pull a spirit from the Fade to influence the world. Fascinated descriptions of what she’d been seeing in her dreams since she was a child, and the coaxing words of beings that gave shivers up his spine.

He urged her not to listen to them, but by her hurt expression and sideways glance, he knew she already had.

Merrill started vanishing in the early morning, coming back with dew-soaked ankles before even the sunrise watch had risen. She started wearing long sleeves, and started carrying around the constant, faint smell of spilt blood. Everyone could smell it, and people started connecting the dots.

People started blaming her for Mahariel’s poisoning, and Tamlen’s disappearance. Of course she denied the accusations, and Marethari demanded they see reason, but that only pushed the whispers quieter but no less incriminating.

Resentment spread like a disease.

Merrill’s mood plummeted.

She isolated herself more and more, staying in camp just long enough to eat and perform her daily lessons with their Keeper before fleeing to the outlying forest or to the Aravel she shared with Marethari.

Weeks passed

Then months

Merrill continued to smell like blood and feel like some dark malevolence creeping in the corner of your eye. The shadows in her eyes grew darker, slender wrists growing thinner from stress and lack of sleep.

She stopped visiting for stories, and when he spoke to her, she replied in a distant voice he recognized as being completely absorbed in other thoughts.

He appealed to Marethari to stop her First, but the woman only looked at him with a quiet expression full of despair. She'd already tried, but Merrill’s obsession was turning darker, and the clan had noticed.

They had to move North, soon. The Blight was progressing further than they had anticipated, and all of Ferelden seemed to be evacuating. If they couldn't fix her by the time they reached the coast….

Well, better to be left behind and have a chance, than to risk being thrown into the sea.

They packed up the Aravels and traveled quickly, picking up stores from abandoned farms along the way - freeing animals left behind, and grabbing any vegetables the two mages could coax into ripening early.

“You have to stop this, Merrill.”  
The young woman tilted her head toward him, blinking slowly.  
“Whatever is eating you up, you have to let it go. We all see it's consuming you.” Paivel brushed his hand against her shoulder, and felt his heart clench at how quickly she leaned back into the friendly touch.  
“I've almost got it, though.”  
Her protest was weak, eyes still distant.  
“We’ll be at the harbor in a week. They're thinking of leaving you behind.”  
She turned fully, green eyes wide. Her skin was still paler than normal, dark bruises under her eyes making her appear sick and frail.  
“You have a week.” He repeated gently.  
She bowed her head, exhaling in a slow gust.  
“Whenever I try to sleep, it feels like there's a spirit throwing a party off in the distance. Just this constant, insistent drumming. Not terribly restful, being kept awake by that all night..” she tensed with a smothered yawn, sagging a little closer to the old storyteller.  
“I can't get Mahariel’s face out of my head.” She whispered. “And Tamlen is out there, somewhere. Maybe just as sick, with no cure.”  
He reached up and ruffled her short hair, enjoying the wide-eyed swivel to look at him.  
“There's an old saying: Healer, tend thyself. If you don't fix your own illnesses, you won't be fit to fix anyone else. You've got a good heart, Merrill, and letting it lead you with the best intentions may get you far.” His voice lowered, “but it can't always lead you true. You gotta find the North Star. Your point of direction. Your goal, to work toward when nothing else in the world makes sense.”

She let him drag her sideways into a hug, hair spiked in all directions from his rake through it.

\---

Only a few days before they reached the harbor, Merrill returned from the forest carting something wrapped tightly in cloth and burlap. Her face looked healthier, with a pink flush about the cheeks, and the dark shadows in her eyes seemed to have lifted.

She revealed it in private that it was a shard of the Eluvian, that she'd managed to purify it of the corruption. But… the eves were known as keen-eared for a reason, and it wasn't long until the whole clan knew she carried with her the item that killed Tamlen.

She used motion sickness as an excuse to stay far away from her clan during the ride across the Waking Sea. Back on land, she isolated herself by walking or hiding in an Aravel as they traveled. Hiding from their sneers and angry glares, her attempts to explain brushed off like she was a particularly stupid child. She kept the shard hidden - safe.

They arrived outside Kirkwall, and Keeper Marethari urged her to abandon the shard, even as the spirit calling out through the Fade told her it could be so much more. He was locked in Sundermount, he said.

_Free me, and I will grant you more knowledge._

_Free me, and I will grant your wish._

 


End file.
